Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
Scalloped clouds cast harsh light outside Legacy House, an assisted living community in Chinatown’s International District, on longboards affixed to the front windows, a remnant of the riots of the first year of the pandemic.
But the atmosphere inside was lively. The dining room is clean. Residents are waiting for lunch.
A visit scheduled by the community for Northwest Asia Weekly on a recent working day shows that the community is well looked after, the staff is vibrant and the residents seem engaged and caring. In one case, the community actually saved a life. On the other hand, it means a new phase of relaxation and freedom.
Dr. Lei Baizhong (photo by Mahlon Meyer)
For Dr. Lei Baizhong, his upstairs room seemed reminiscent of the dormitory he lived in when he worked on a long list of appointments at Chinese medical institutions. He eventually became the director of the Hainan Provincial University Hospital, which was no mean feat.
The room is not big, but clean and functional. They have a clean, spartan feel, as if old and finally entitled to break free from the shackles of their earlier years, to relax and enjoy. No fuss, no decorative lights with Chinese shades or cleaner smelling rugs.
For example, Dr. Ray pushed a clean, medium-sized bed into the middle of the wall, and a desk and other appendages disappeared in the cool, fresh light that filtered in through the blinds.
Ray is 90 years old, but can be said to be 60 or 70 years old. His cheeks were flushed. He entered Legacy House shortly after being kicked out of the hospital because Medicaid would not pay for the longer interruption.
“I was there for five days after the surgery and the scars hadn’t healed and they said you had to go.”
He returned to the senior residence he shared with his wife. But he couldn’t eat it. He can’t move. The only option the hospital offered was to put him back on radiation therapy.
“But I’m an internist,” he said. “I know it doesn’t help this cancer.”
Before contacting the manager of Legacy House, he lost weight and nearly died. She schedules an evaluation. Immediately, he was moved into the assisted living community. Under his care, within a month, he regained his original strength.
“I now eat two bowls of rice with every meal,” he said. “more than one.”
Legacy House was taken over by International Community Health Services (ICHS) in 2019, just before the pandemic hit. This is part of the legacy of Bob Santos, who led the revival of the area and helped build many institutions. In the wake of the pandemic, after being forced to close for nearly two years, Legacy House now, like most other industries, has some vacancies left.
If you visit the community at lunchtime or talk to the staff of the community, you can observe, which seems surprising.
On a recent weekday, residents waited in a spacious, clean, well-lit restaurant for waiters to bring boxes of Asian food. That day, there were thick slices of salmon, almost flaky, sweet and sour pork, soup, two kinds of vegetables, a white crispy cabbage – even after being fried – and something darker and different kinds of rice.
Even taking off the mask for a moment will make people feel hungry in the stomach. While Ray was sitting on his side, there was a glass partition in the middle of the table. Be merry, smile, wave.
“I regained my appetite,” he said.
Ray’s health (he says he only has high blood pressure) is an indicator that families seeking assistance in the community will consider.
In most places, the average time a resident lives in an assisted living community is measured in years. In fact, it’s a closely guarded secret, as it affects the calculation of how much the community will prepay residents and their families. If they lived longer, the charge might be more.
Lei Jun has now lived in the community for 17 years.
Legacy House relies on Medicaid for all nursing and medical expenses, as well as food for residents, said director Vivian Hon. The rest consists of fundraising and ICHS.
Staff turnover appears to be low, the bane of the industry.
A petite, gray-haired Asian woman hurriedly pulled a white cleaning van to make way for tourists. She has been a housekeeper there for 24 years, a rarity in the industry.
“She was our first employee,” Hon said.
At lunchtime, a nurse with short hair, also Asian, leans intently, focusing on a plate of medicine and paper cups. All staff were Asian or Asian American except for one server that was seen that day.
Residents speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog and other Asian languages or dialects. None of the residents was white.
“You might be the first,” Han told reporters, noting his enthusiasm for activity rooms (a group of residents knitting and sewing bright fabrics and supplies around a table).
Legacy House accepts anyone.
“But we’re in the international zone,” said Hon, from Hong Kong, “so it makes sense that we now have all the Asian residents.”
Ted Wang (photo by Mahlon Meyer)
Ted Wong, 79, is another resident. One would think that, as a former hotel manager, and the manager of some of the world’s top hotels, he would have doubts about his new environment.
He stayed at Legacy House for two and a half years. His room is filled with books, yoga mats and dumbbells. He’s neat and clean-shaven, as if he’s hosting an important guest, visiting the Peninsula in Hong Kong or the Hilton Seattle where he’s worked.
But his relaxed attitude showed he was relaxed when joking with guides and staff. He said he lived longer because he was cared for in the community. In the afternoon he walks around the neighborhood, which keeps him slim and fit.
He seemed proud of having filled out an application and was “accepted”.
Indications also appear to indicate that family members feel comfortable with visiting, which is not always the case in senior living communities.
Outside the corridor, a black-haired young woman wearing a mask escorted an old woman with fluffy white hair, who looked like she was caught and messed up by two hands. The older woman walked into the elevator with a walker, and the younger woman, apparently her daughter, leaned back slightly, as if her mother was still in charge, even in old age.
“We have a lot of family members visiting,” Hon said.
No elderly sullenly in a wheelchair at the door, which is the norm in some communities. There are morning exercises, which about half of the residents participate in, and then they break into small groups to get individualized attention.
The photos on the bulletin board seem to be authentic scenes of relaxation and celebration. These photos are not of young family members seeing their elders grimacing and posturing in pain in places where they might find it uncomfortable, but of young people in the resident with their faces like spotlights, beaming with joy and Be sure, if not, they’ve found a place. Only for my parents, but also for myself.
Dr. Ray is a regular on the bulletin board. He has a full half of the bulletin board dedicated to him. Post Chinese articles about heart disease and other diseases so everyone can read it. There are also articles about his life.
After leaving China, he settled in Seattle with his daughter and later started a company selling Chinese and Western medicines with his help. His two sons and wife, both doctors, came to help the company soon after. However, one of the sons has now entered the IT field.
The building itself seems attractive to tourists. The hallways are wide and seem to stretch forever to the lighted door at the end – surprising since there are only 25 residents on each of the three floors. It looks more like an old-fashioned European hotel or hostel than an assisted living community.
Hotel manager Huang opened a Hyatt Regency hotel in Guam before coming to Seattle. He likes the ease of life, the peaceful sea and the kind people there. But he wants his sons to come to the mainland to find opportunities.
When asked why his long experience in the hospitality industry doesn’t advise staff, he said five-star hotels have their way of doing things and senior living facilities have theirs. He said he was pleased with the change.
“Life is divided into three steps,” Wang said, summarizing his experience so far. “One is education, the other is work, and the third is enjoyment after retirement.”
Moments later, he asked with the kind of Hong Kong humor that makes the city unique: “Don’t you agree?”
Mahlon can be contacted by info@nwasianweekly.com.
